THE British Home Secretary, Theresa May, has defied American authorities by halting the extradition of British computer hacker Gary McKinnon.

The decision was criticised by the US State Department but welcomed with delight by campaigners and politicians across parties in Britain.

In a dramatic House of Commons statement, Mrs May told MPs she had taken the quasi-judicial decision on human rights grounds because of medical reports warning that Mr McKinnon, 46, who has Asperger's syndrome and suffers from depressive illness, could kill himself if sent to stand trial in the US.

The irony that Mrs May's most popular decision as Home Secretary was taken because of the Human Rights Act, which she has pledged to scrap, was not lost on her critics. But in a promised overhaul of the extradition laws that accompanied the decision, Mrs May indicated that future home secretaries would be stripped of the very power that she had used to save the computer hacker.

Advertisement

Mr McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, said Mrs May had been "incredibly brave" to "stand up" to the Americans. She said she was overwhelmed after the "emotional roller-coaster" the family had been through in the past 10 years.

Mr McKinnon could not speak when he first heard the decision but then cried and hugged his mother.

"He felt like he was a dead person," Ms Sharp said.

"He had no job, he didn't go on holiday . . . he felt worthless . . . Thank you, Theresa May, from the bottom of my heart — I always knew you had the strength and courage to do the right thing."

Mr McKinnon's local MP, David Burrowes, who had threatened to resign from the government if the extradition went ahead, said that Mrs May had saved Mr McKinnon's life.

Mr McKinnon was first indicted by an American grand jury in November 2002 for hacking into US military computers, including the Pentagon and NASA, from his north London bedroom while he was looking for UFOs. He could have faced a prison sentence of up 70 years under US law.

The extradition order against Mr McKinnon has been withdrawn and it will now be for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether he should be prosecuted in Britain.

A spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland, said: "The United States is disappointed by the decision to deny Gary McKinnon's extradition to face long overdue justice in the United States. We are examining the details of the decision."

The US authorities have described Mr McKinnon's actions as the "biggest military computer hack of all time".

The Washington Post observed that the decision "could ignite tensions in an otherwise close trans-Atlantic relationship", while the former White House counsel Douglas McNabb said the United States Attorney would be furious.

The decision, which is the first time an extradition has been halted under the 2003 US-UK treaty, prompted immediate delight from those who campaigned to prevent Mr McKinnon's removal, and politicians from all parties.

The only discordant note came from the former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson, who said the hacker's human rights case had been rejected by judges in 2009. He said Mrs May had made the decision "in her party's best interest; it is not in the best interests of the country".